A Senate panel voted Thursday to erect some new hurdles in the path of those seeking to recall state and local elected officials.

Following the historic recall of former Senate President Russell Pearce, the ousted immigration hawk’s legislative allies are striving to change the state’s recall process to make it more difficult to remove elected officials. But the effort to add a primary election to the process has run into some obstacles.

A state House committee has shot down a proposal giving voters the option to change recall elections in a way that could make it more difficult to vote an incumbent out of office.